Thief Of My Heart
by Amarin Rose
Summary: Switch: Part 1 Pairings: Bakura–Ryou, Y–Y Summary: Facts about Bakura: Tomb–robber? Check. Dark spirit of the Millennium Ring? Check. Ryou's Yami? Check. Formerly one of Pharaoh's greatest enemies? Check. Male? Er...here's where we enter a gray area...
1. One Badass Woman?

**One Badass…Woman?**

**In Which Bakura Is Something Other Than Previously Thought**

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_Téa's line about simple things is attributed to the wondrous Wildwolf, another YGO author here on FF. Net. Go check her fics (and the amazing quotes in her profile) out._

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**Japanese**

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Aibou – Partner   
Ano – Um…   
Chichi – Father (Your Own)   
Kami-sama – God   
Kokoro no Dorobou – Thief of my Heart

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"Are you **sure** this will work?" Ryou asked worriedly.

"For the third time, **yes**," Malik said impatiently. "If we three put our Millennium items together, the magic will be able to create separate bodies for our yamis."

"He's just worried, Malik," Yugi soothed. "The papyrus that spell you want to use is on isn't exactly at the height of legibility. And if anything goes wrong…"

"It won't, aibou," Yami soothed, his ghostly form hovering just behind his soul-partner. "The spell will work."

"Keh! Why, because you will it so, oh, King of Games?" Bakura grumbled, separating from Ryou with a flash. The white-haired yami lounged back against a nearby tree and glared indolently at the other spirit. Yami had banished both Bakura and Marik to Shadow Realm, true, but he'd actually performed a similar maneuver to the one he had with Kaiba in Death T, crushing the evil from their souls. Once the two darkest spirits had been freed of their evil intentions, they'd been allowed to return.

But six people time-sharing three bodies would stress out even the most peaceful of people – especially when there were some things you just **needed** separate bodies for, not the least of which was a break from the constant, 24/7 togetherness – and while Ryou and Yugi could be considered mostly as tranquil as a still pond, Malik had never been patient. It was getting **way** too crowded in his head for his liking, so he'd gone looking for a spell to separate himself and Marik. Once he'd found one, he'd offered to share it with the other two hikaris and their yamis, knowing they'd appreciate it just as much – if not more – than he himself did. They'd all gathered in a grove of trees on the far side of Domino Park that morning, since the spell had to be performed at noon, with the sun shining down overhead; but even the fresh air and sunny day couldn't keep old animosities at bay.

"Because there is no reason it would **not** work, thief," Yami said simply, steel in his voice.

"That's 'Thief **King**' to you, **Pharaoh**," Bakura snarled. Ryou noted that there seemed to be an undercurrent of worry to Bakura's thoughts, despite the belligerent manner, and he couldn't very well blame the spirit.

"Stop it, you two," Yugi admonished. "We need to get the spell circle set up and we can't do that with you two fighting."

Huffing, Bakura subsided back against the tree. Yami nodded at his other and leaned against his own conifer.

"Alright, let's get to it!" Joey declared, and everyone went to their assigned tasks. Joey and Tristan sketched out the spell circle according to Téa's instructions, as she read them from the parchment Malik had handed her. Meanwhile Yugi, Ryou and Malik set up the protection wards, Yami lending his recently remembered expertise in spell casting when needed. Kaiba, who had invited himself along because 'it's going to be hard to explain three people who are your doubles, especially if they don't have the appropriate documentation, and I'm the only one who has physicians on call in case something goes wrong' stayed on the fringes of the group. He kept one eye on the tomb-raider while the other followed Mokuba – who was using this gathering as a way of getting tips about the Dungeon Dice Monster video game from its creator – making sure his younger brother didn't get in the way of any stray spells.

Half an hour after they'd first gathered, the spell circle was complete, the wards were set, and all that was left to do was get into their places and await the rising of the sun to its zenith. Only five more minutes before the golden orb would be centered in the sky.

When the appointed time was almost upon them, Yugi, Ryou and Malik stood at the three points of the spell circle, while Yami, Bakura, and Marik – who had remained inside the Rod during the preparations but came out for his part in the ceremony – gathered in the center. Joey, Tristan, Téa, and Seto backed up to the edge of the clearing, the latter's cell phone in his hand in case he needed to call for help.

At Malik's nod, the three hikaris all pointed their Millennium items towards the center of the circle and started chanting. Golden glows started to form around the Puzzle, the Ring and the Rod, before shooting out towards their respective yamis and enveloping them in the light.

The spoken part of the spell was actually short and the chanting soon died out, followed by the spell's light. The three hikaris were none the worse for wear, and the yamis…

…were apparently all right.

Yami himself stood in the center of the circle, regal as only one who had been the Chosen Son of Ra could be. He was adorned in the apparel he'd worn in his former life; a sand-colored cape hung from his shoulders, his chest bare beneath it. Golden jewelry glinted from neck and ear, wrapped around arms and legs, topped by a tri-spiked crown set in his tri-colored hair. Marik was dressed much as he had been during Battle City – in khaki cargo pants, a sleeveless purple shirt, and a dark cape – though this time there was no gleam of insanity or malice in his eyes. And Bakura…

Bakura was clad in a long, dark red cloak, the color of dried blood. Its swirling folds obscured most of the thief's body, but could not, however, conceal one startling fact…

"Bakura's a **girl**?!" Joey shrieked. He was apparently the only one of the group who was capable of speaking at the moment. Other than Kaiba, of course, who had dropped his cell phone into his pocket once it was apparent that no one would be in need of medical help and was now staring at the three yamis with calculated intensity, paying particular interest to Bakura.

"Oh, shit!" Malik cursed, lavender eyes going wide with panic. "There **was** something wrong with the spell. Damnit, Ryou, I'm sorry. But there's got to be a way to fix this."

Sighing in resignation, Ryou shook his head. "No, Malik, nothing went wrong with the spell." Turning to his yami, he asked, a slight hint of worry for, but no surprise at, the former spirit's appearance in his voice, "Are you okay, 'Kura?"

Scowling at the surrounding gawkers, Bakura turned to her light and nodded. "I'm fine, Ryou," she reassured him, her voice only slightly higher than it had been when she possessed Ryou's body. Ryou noticed that for all her bravado, she seemed agitatedly anxious over everyone's reactions to the revelation of her gender. Her muscles were tensed and the thoughts he was picking up through their mind-link were all focused on escape tactics. "But I don't think the baka Pharaoh is – he seems to have been struck mute." She chuckled maliciously, and everyone shivered as they realized it sounded just like it always did.

The 'baka Pharaoh' meanwhile, seemed to finally find his tongue when Bakura's insult made its way to his ears. "Tomb-raider?" he asked, as if unsure of what his eyes were telling him. "You're **female**? How can this be; you were known as the Thief **King**."

Another dark chuckle escaped the female former-spirit. "Oh, please, Pharaoh. As if any man in ancient Egypt would have admitted that a **woman** could have broken into – and made their way **out** of – Pharaoh's tomb and survived. Besides," she smirked, tossing her white-blonde mane over one shoulder in a mock-show of coyness, "no one ever got a good enough look at me to know for sure, one way or the other."

The others could see how that was possible. Bakura's cloak had been shrugged back along with her hair and they could see that she was dressed in a pair of body-forming leather pants, and, unlike Yami, who wore golden sandals, she wore sturdy boots on her feet. Her torso was clad in a sleeveless shirt, with an open black tunic overtop. She was thin, long and lanky, though well-muscled, with almost no curves. The faint white streaks of a scar crisscrossed her cheek in three intersecting lines. The only clue as to her true gender were the soft swells underneath the tunic, which would definitely not be so readily apparent to frightened guards in a darkened tomb who were more concerned with seeing the face of the thief than the rest of him – or her, as the case may be.

"I guess we'll have to call you the Thief **Queen** then, now, eh, Baku-**chan**?" Marik asked, giggling slightly. Everyone assembled was glad to note the lack of madness in his mirth, but none of them were crazy enough to laugh at the former spirit's joke. Except Mokuba, but he made sure that they were silent chuckles, **and** he was hiding behind his brother and Duke.

Bakura scowled darkly, the meanness in her expression not daunted one bit by her change in physical gender. "No, you won't. Not if you know what's good for you, baka. I **earned** that title fair and square, and I'm not about to let a group of arrogant **men **take it away from me just so they can feel better about themselves by demeaning my accomplishments."

Ryou was glad to see the evanescence of her former worry, even if it had been replaced by heated anger.

"Figures," Joey snorted.

"What, mutt?" Kaiba asked, mentally figuring out how much work it would take to redo the documentation preparations he'd made for Bakura to show that **she** was female, and not male, as he'd formerly presumed.

For once ignoring the patent insult, Joey said, "It figures that a female Bakura would be a man-hating feminist."

"What's a feminist?" Mokuba asked Duke from the corner of his mouth. Duke chuckled and, pulling the younger boy out of range of the ensuing conversation, said, "Well, kid…"

"Whoever said I hate men?" Bakura asked, the curiosity in her tone not obscuring the thread of steel woven through the core of her voice.

Joey gulped and wisely remained silent.

Tristan, however, decided to take his life in his hands. "Well, you're not the only woman in the group, so we're not entirely a group of **men**, Bakura. You're forgetting about Téa." He grinned sardonically. "And though I will admit that Kaiba is an arrogant ass, most of the rest of we poor males aren't all that bad."

Kaiba huffed. _To hear Mai tell it, we are._ "Arrogant I may be, Taylor, but the thief has a point. Throughout history, though a Queen may have been touted as being the female equivalent of a King, in truth that's not the way it really was. The Queen was **always** second to the King, and if there was no King, she was subject to her advisors." Casting the tomb-raider a droll glance, he finished with, "And if Bakura was known throughout ancient Egypt as the Thief **King**, then obviously, she was second to no one."

Giving the CEO a sweeping bow, Bakura said, "Thank you for your kind words, Kaiba." Before anyone could be too shocked by her apparent show of appreciation, she straightened and added in a scathing voice, "But I can defend my **own **honor, thanks."

Kaiba just smirked and leaned back against the tree Bakura had previously been lounging on. _Although, in chess, the Queen does have all the best moves._ Cutting his eyes across the clearing, he lighted on his brother, who was **still** talking to Duke. Straining his ears, he heard Devlin's fumbling words and chuckled. He was trying to explain the women's suffrage movement to an eleven-year-old. Kaiba wished him luck – the dice duelist would need it.

"All right, all right," Yugi cut in exasperatedly. "Now that we've heard from the peanut gallery, do you think the rest of the nuts could get a chance to chime in?"

Everyone blinked. Téa, who had previously been nodding in agreement to Kaiba's speech, cast an involuntary glance at Marik and Malik.

"Whaaaat?" Joey asked, confusion plain in his voice.

"**Bakura** may be alright, but what about the other two spirits?" Malik clarified. Turning to his other, he asked, "You feel okay, Marik?" his lavender eyes running down the tall form, checking for any problems.

The other Egyptian nodded. "I feel fine. But I just about busted a gut laughing over this whole deal." He chuckled darkly, while casting snickering glances at Bakura, who was lounging against a tree, observing the proceedings with a sardonic smirk on her face. Malik tried, but he couldn't hold back his giggles, either.

Giving the two blond Egyptians a withering glance, Yugi asked Yami, "How about you? Any side effects?"

"No, I, too feel fine, Yugi," Yami assured him. "But what are we going to do about Bakura?"

"Why do we have to do anything?" Yugi asked, rummaging in the backpack he'd brought along. "Bakura can take care of herself, and Ryou can help her adjust to this time. That was the plan before, and I don't see why it has to change now. Here," he said, handing a pile of cloth to the former spirit.

"What's this?" Yami asked.

"Clothes," Yugi said succinctly. "You can't go around in this time dressed like that, at least not when it's not near Halloween. Bakura and Malik can blend in if they take off their cloaks, but most men in this time don't wear the equivalent of skirts."

"It's a loincloth, hikari," Yami said acidly. "It was standard dress in most of ancient Egypt."

Yugi smiled softly. "I know. But technically, a loincloth is a type of skirt. And even if it wasn't, you can't go around with a bare chest, besides, no matter how good you look like that. Remember those restaurant signs you thought were ironic?"

Yami's lips lifted in a slight smile. "No shirt, no shoes, no service?" He'd thought they were funny because back in ancient Egypt, most people didn't wear shoes, **or** shirts. Of course, service wasn't nearly as good back then, either…

"Exactly." Yugi nodded and, grabbing Yami's arm, he started tugging his other away from the group, which had started to break up. "There's a restroom over here where you can change before we head back to the Game Shop. Come on."

Yami just smiled in barely-disguised amusement and let himself be dragged off by his over-exuberant light. Maybe he could convince Yugi to make out a bit before coming back to the group…

Bakura had taken refuge underneath the shade of a nearby willow tree. "Ra, it's scorching out here. No pun intended." She wiped a hand across her face, beads of sweat gathering on her fingertips.

Ryou chuckled softly. "Well, leather might be practical and durable, but it **is** an insulating fabric. And that cloak of yours can't be helping matters any."

"It is rather hot to be dressed like this," Bakura allowed. Untying her cloak and letting it slip to the ground, she shrugged out of her tunic as she explained, "This is what I wore when I went tomb-raiding. Clothes like these were more suited for sneaking into underground crypts; everything is cooler underground, especially in Egypt." Shrugging her hair back over her shoulders, she extended her arms straight up, clasping her hands together and bending them around her back in a stretch. Her shirt rode up, exposing a toned stomach and stretching prominently over a chest that, though not extremely well-endowed, had obviously never worn a bra.

Téa, catching sight of Joey and Tristan's wide eyes, and open, drooling mouths at the sight of Bakura's breasts, huffed and simultaneously elbowed them both in their ribs. The two would-be lechers inched out of range of her bony weapons, still surreptitiously checking out the only other – and definitely more deadly – female in the group.

Marik and Malik were huddled together underneath a large oak tree, seemingly having a rather serious conversation. Or, at least, Malik was serious; Marik was still giggling, and frustrating his hikari.

Seeing that all three soul-pairs were otherwise engaged – as were Tristan and the mutt, both of whom were drooling over the lone female former-spirit; his brother was still keeping Duke occupied – Kaiba decided to leave his instructions with Téa, the only other one of their sundry group not otherwise occupied. At least he felt that she was conceivably responsible enough to both remember them and repeat them correctly.

If Mai had been here, she would have been a good choice as well, but she was in Tokyo for the next three weeks, so he had to make do.

"Gardner," he said, and continued as her eyes flickered to him in acknowledgment, "I have a meeting I need to attend; make sure Moto and the others are in my office at noon on Saturday. They'll need to be prepared to spend several hours filling out paperwork and having pictures taken for documentation." At her nod, he continued, "They'll also need to come up with names for the yamis, and explanations for who they are. It would be almost impossible to pull off the twin brother – or sister – thing this late in life. Except maybe in Ishtar's case."

"And they'd be the only two who'd want people to think they were related anyway; it would be counterproductive for Yugi's situation; Ryou's, too, perhaps," Téa agreed. At Seto's raised eyebrow, she said, "Don't tell me you haven't noticed?"

"I thought I was the only one of this motley crew who had," he returned dryly. _Well, Mai did, but then she likes playing matchmaker…_

Casting a glance at Joey and Tristan – who, judging from their hand gestures had apparently gone from looking at to discussing Bakura's 'attributes' – she sighed. "What with all the trials and tribulations we've been through this past year – Duelist Kingdom and Pegasus, Battle City and the God Cards, Noah's World – I think most of the guys just want to take things at face value; accept things the way they are without trying to look for hidden meanings in everything. It makes things simpler."

"Simple minds, simple things," Kaiba said quietly, prompting a snort from the brunette.

"Simple minds are amused by simple things; complex minds are amazed by the simplicity of things. Is there really a difference?" she asked, exasperated.

Giving her a shrewd glance, Kaiba said, "I suppose not much of one," before heading across the green expanse of grass to drag Mokuba away from Duke's enthralling – if slightly inaccurate and greatly sensationalized – telling of the women's rights movement. By the time he'd managed to pry Mokuba away from his latest idol – and Kami-sama help him, Devlin was just as arrogant as himself, twice as popular, and not even half as responsible; couldn't Mokuba have picked someone better to temporarily idolize? Like maybe his penpal in New Zealand; that way he wouldn't have to put up with seeing the dice freak all the time – and was heading out of the park, Yugi had returned with a more modernly-dressed – and suspiciously rumpled – Yami. The former Pharaoh had apparently started up his argument with Bakura again, and Seto couldn't help but listen in; he'd never seen his archrival so flustered.

And all because the tomb-robber turned out to be a girl? Shocking, yes, especially considering how…insane, cruel and merciless she had been while under the influence of her darker impulses, but still…

"I **am **the greatest thief who has ever lived; I did something no one else has ever done. I broke into Pharaoh's tomb and lived to tell the tale," Bakura declared smugly, her low voice carrying clearly across the few yards separating the group from the Kaiba brothers.

Yami scoffed. "Tomb-raider, people today do that all the time; they're called archaeologists. You might have heard of them; Ryou's father **is** one, after all," he said smugly.

"But chichi had a team of diggers and a bunch of modern equipment to help him," Ryou pointed out. "And in most cases, a map to the booby traps."

Bakura huffed. "I had only a few knives, some rope, and my wits. I didn't have anyone to 'help' me, and I had to figure out the booby traps all by myself. I dare anyone today to do what I did with what I had. Indiana Jones is a crock, and Lara Croft relies too much on her technology."

"But while you may have been the greatest thief in the ancient world, you couldn't hack it in today's world," Kaiba put in, no longer content to just listen in on the conversation. "All security today is run by computers; you'd never be a great thief if you couldn't get past even the simplest alarm system."

Smirking, Bakura asked, "Like the one on your mansion?"

Kaiba's eyes narrowed. His mansion had the best alarm system in the world. He should know; he'd designed it himself. "What do you mean by that, Bakura?"

"Yes, what do you mean by that, thief?" Yami chimed in.

Yugi wisely stayed silent.

"You're not the only one who relies too much on your technology, Kaiba." Flashing the two rivals a grin which showcased her fangs, Bakura turned to her light.

Ryou blanched. "You didn't," he said, scandalized.

She dipped her head in a nod.

"When?" Almost before the question was spoken, Ryou shook his head vehemently. "No, never mind; Thursday night, right?"

Blood red eyes sparkled and she said, "Check your lower side pocket."

Ryou sighed in resignation and, reaching down his right leg, unbuttoned the indicated pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out a small wrapped parcel. Handing it to Bakura, he watched as she unwrapped it and tossed the contents to Kaiba.

"Thought you might like this back," she said graciously, a smirk lurking around her lips. "I found it in the CD tray on your computer two nights ago; it **might** be important."

By the end of her recitation, Kaiba's face had developed a tic, and Mokuba's eyes were the size of saucers. Letting out a hissing breath between his teeth, Kaiba growled, "I need to hire better security," before putting one hand on Mokuba's shoulder and steering him away, presumably to fire his current security and see about the hiring of new ones.

Giving Yami – who looked liked he'd just swallowed more crow than you'd find in a Kansas corn field – a smug, satisfied 'Take that!' look, Bakura chuckled and sauntered over to talk with Malik. Yami turned an alarming shade of red, almost as bright as his hair, before shaking his head and storming off with Yugi in tow.

Téa, seeing that Ryou was now free of the two fighting yamis and any spectators, strolled over, intent on broaching a rather…delicate subject. One that she never thought she'd be attempting – especially not in this situation.

"Ano…Ryou?" she started.

"Téa, hey. What's up?" Ryou asked, a tired smile gracing his face.

"In light of Bakura's…surprising revelation, I thought that I should bring up a difficulty that might not have occurred to you," Téa said, phrasing her concern carefully.

"I don't have any problem with Bakura being a girl; I never have," Ryou said, his tone slightly bristling.

"I know you don't; neither do I," Téa hastened to assure him. "But the fact of the matter is, the circumstances of being a girl have changed in the past 5,000 years, and neither you or Bakura might realize how much."

Ryou's righteous indignation – which, admittedly, was hard to rile up and slow to start – faltered in the face of her serious demeanor. "I'm not sure what you're getting at," he said carefully.

Heaving a sigh, Téa realized that she'd have to be blunt. "I know you like her, Ryou; she likes you too, I can tell. If you're not together now, you will be soon. Only unlike Yugi and Yami, you and Bakura have to deal with the fact that she could get pregnant."

Ryou blanched. "Ano…"

"Hadn't thought of that, had you?" Téa said compassionately. "And the difficulty I was referring to is that 5,000 years ago, the only birth control they had was a bunch of different herbs brewed into a tea that didn't always work. Bakura probably doesn't know anything about contraception, or menstrual cycles," she clamped down on her innate urge to blush at this delicate subject, but noticed Ryou was turning flame-red, "she doesn't even know all the intricacies of modern underwear. Never mind makeup or jewelry, or anything like that. You're going to have to talk to her about this before you two…**do** anything," she finished uncomfortably.

Ryou nodded faintly. "Oh, I can just picture it," he said, a slightly manic smile stealing over his lips. "She prefers action over words; me trying to **talk** to her about sex would be almost anathema to her. Couldn't I just get her a book?" He gave Téa a pleading look. "They've got those ones for preteen girls that should work, right?"

Téa shook her head, at a loss. Bringing up yet another point, she asked, "Does she know how to read? Not just Japanese, but anything? Most people back then didn't, you know. And even if she does, she probably won't understand most of it."

"And I will?" Ryou demanded, eyes wide with dread. "I'm not a girl, I don't know about any of this stuff."

Sighing, Téa finally faced the inevitable – with Mai off Kami-knew-where, she was the only girl in this bunch, and it fell to her to help Bakura, and by extension Ryou, out. "I could talk to her," she offered. "I know what she needs to know."

Finally shaking off his glazed and slightly panicked expression, Ryou turned to her. "You're a good friend, Téa, a **really** good friend, to even **offer** something like this, but I'm not so cowardly that I'd subject you to giving Bakura a sex talk," he said, a grin lurking around the corners of his lips. "Just…could you help me find one of those books? I'll read it first and hopefully I can convince her to listen long enough to tell her all the important bits."

Inwardly sighing in relief that she wouldn't have to face the wrath of a woman for whom the physical expression of the emotions embarrassed and enraged were probably almost interchangeable, Téa said, "Sure. I'll meet you at the library on Monday, okay?"

"Yeah, that'd be great. Ano…I don't suppose you could also help me out with the clothing bit, could you?" Ryou begged. "Men's and women's clothing is sized differently, and while it was fine for her to wear my clothes when we were sharing my body, I really don't think that's gonna work anymore. Especially seeing as how she's almost three inches taller than me. I need to get her some clothes of her own to wear, soon."

"I think there are size-conversion charts available on the Internet; I'll find one and print it off for you," Téa told him. "As for underwear…I don't really think Bakura needs a bra."

Ryou sagged in relief at this bit. "Well, that should make her deliriously happy – or it would, if she even knew she was **supposed** to wear one. But are you sure?"

Nodding, Téa said, "She really doesn't have enough up front to warrant one. If she gets any bigger, then that might change, but for now…just make sure she's aware of the fact that some guys," here her eyes cut across to Joey and Tristan, "are going to stare at her because of her lack of undergarments. I wouldn't want her to be surprised by anything."

Ryou uncharacteristically smirked. "I think 'Kura can take care of herself in that regard, but I'll let her know, if only so she can make sure to threaten the appropriate people," he said dryly.

Téa chuckled and made her goodbyes, heading off down the path to the bike racks so she could ride home.

By this time, Joey, Tristan and Duke had decided to leave. Tristan because Bakura caught him checking her out, Joey, ostensibly because he was hungry (but had, in reality, also been caught leering at Bakura and rightfully feared the thief's wrath), and Duke because he didn't want to close his shop down for too long.

Said thief had finished chatting with Malik and Marik and, after bidding them goodbye, went to collect her light so they could head home.

Walking across the grass until she reached the bench occupied by the white-haired boy, she came to stop less than a foot away from him. When he grinned up at her, shading his eyes from the sun, she gave him a small, real smile, one that no one but he had seen in over 5,000 years.

"You okay, Ry?" she asked quietly, her voice losing its hostile tone and softening as she spoke to him.

"I'm good, 'Kura. How about you?" he asked, scooting over so she could sit down. He'd folded her discarded cloak and tunic, and they sat on the end of the bench along with his backpack, which was filled with the remnants of their spell casting.

She sighed heavily, but nodded. "Yeah, I'm good. I was…unsure how everyone would take it when they found out."

Ryou knew her hesitation had been because she refused to use the word 'worried', even though it was probably more appropriate in this situation. Tactfully sidestepping that situation, he said, "I think Yami's really okay with you as you are; it's just that you're a very unladylike woman."

She half-chuckled, half-huffed. "You mean he's got an impossibly strong code of ethics, and since chivalry dictates that you don't hit – or try to kill – a woman, he's having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I've beat him up on more than one occasion. Bah! I'm the same person I ever was, if not as evil since my last stay in the Shadow Realm. He doesn't have to treat me any differently – we can go on annoying each other same as always."

"I don't think he really **wants** to be nicer to you; it'll just take him some time to realize that just because you're a woman doesn't mean he **needs** to be nicer to you," Ryou said.

"He needs to come out of the Dark Ages and realize that all women are not weak, simpering idiots who need to be pampered and protected," Bakura snarled.

Laying one hand on his yami's tense shoulder, Ryou said softly, "But there's nothing wrong with wanting to protect those you care about, right, 'Kura?"

Instead of answering, she shook her head slowly and leaned back into him. Realizing what she wanted – even though she herself most likely didn't – he curled his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him.

They just sat there for a few minutes, enjoying this new, corporeal closeness, and each other. The wind whistled faintly through the branches of the willow tree overhead, bringing the smell of spring cherry blossoms to their noses, calming the both of them down from the hectic morning.

Finally, Ryou hesitantly broke the silence. "Do…do you think that everything will change now?" he asked. "I mean, because our circumstances are different?" He'd been remembering Téa's words; they'd hit him with all the force of a baseball bat. For while he and Bakura had come to terms with each other and mended the fences the latter's forced possessing of his body had originally broken soon after her second (and much shorter, thankfully) term in the Shadow Realm, they had only acknowledged their romantic feelings for each other a few months ago. They were both still testing the bounds of their relationship, hesitant about making the wrong move or moving too fast.

In short, they hadn't even gotten to first base yet.

Bakura was about as outwardly emotional as Kaiba on a good day – aside from random bursts of temper and sharp comebacks – and she wasn't really a very touchy-feely person. Or at least, she hadn't been. Ryou had noticed she liked cuddling with him, current circumstances included. Ever since they'd declared their feelings for each other, more often than not, they went to sleep in one or the other of their soul rooms, just holding each other while they slept.

It seemed to keep the nightmares – both hers and his – at bay.

He was brought out of his reminiscent musings by Bakura's delayed answer to his question. "I don't think change is necessarily bad," she said at length. "Especially not in this case." Flashing him a quick, albeit weak grin, she continued, "As long as…things…change slowly, we should be able to adapt to the differences without too much trouble."

After mulling that over for a few moments, Ryou gave a single, definite nod. "Sounds good to me."

"Hmm…" Heaving a sigh, Bakura pulled away – somewhat reluctantly, Ryou noted with pleasure, which was definitely promising – and got to her feet. "Ready to go, Ry?"

He grinned back at her and nodded. "I'm ready, kokoro no dorobou."

A lump formed in her throat at the endearment, as it always did whenever Ryou used one. This one was new, but so appropriate for their relationship. Though she was uncomfortable with being so open with her feelings, she couldn't let that go unanswered. "Most priceless object I ever stole," she returned softly, stepping into his welcoming embrace. "My treasure…"

Their lips met, not hesitantly, but softly, in a kiss that was almost chaste. It wasn't their first kiss, but it was the first time they'd ever been together outside of their soul rooms, and it was…new, and amazingly sweet, considering who they were. Despite being soft-spoken, Ryou wasn't exactly sugary, and Bakura, for all that she wasn't evil anymore, had never been anything but harsh.

Their lips moved against each other like two dance partners who knew each other's moves as well as their own. Giving and taking with no need to ask for permission, tongues tentatively twining around each other like Ryou's fingers were twining in the strands of her hair, holding her close with a security she found…strangely comforting. It was…nice, having someone who wanted to protect her.

Shivering slightly as a cool breeze ruffled her hair, Bakura pulled back from the kiss reluctantly. Maybe in the Shadow Realm, breathing wasn't an obstacle, but this was the real world. Leaning her forehead against Ryou's, Bakura stared into her light's dreamy, love-clouded eyes. A breath caught in her throat at the depth of emotion she saw in those chocolate-brown orbs.

Ryou's own breath formed a lump in his throat as he looked at his dark. Her cheeks were flushed with passion and breathlessness, her lips were swollen from the fierceness the kiss had achieved at its apex, and her eyes were bristling with tears from unspoken emotions. His heart swelled with everything he was feeling, and before he knew it, the words were out, the cat escaping from the bag before he could stop it. "I love you, Bakura."

Her eyes going wide with shock, she stuttered out, "I… Ryou, I…" Tears filled her eyes and she whispered, panicked, "I can't say it…not yet…"

"I know, 'Kura, I know," Ryou soothed her, his hand coming to comb gently through her hair. "But that doesn't mean you don't feel it." He poked lightly at their mind-link, which, when the intensity of the kiss swamped over them, had flared wide open, leaving their emotions bared to each other.

She nodded numbly in acceptance of his words, so relieved and happy that he understood. For the greatest part of her life, words had only been used to hurt, not to express the softer emotions. It would take time for her heart to heal enough to do so. But her inability to tell Ryou how she felt would change, albeit slowly.

And as Bakura held her love in her arms, she reflected that even if **everything** **did** change, it would only be for the better.


	2. Little Moments

**Little Moments**

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**In Which There Is Much Discussion And Revelations Of A More Personal Nature**

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_I borrowed Bakura's choice in music from Chapter 13 of Borath's 'Experiment'. If you like the Yami/Bakura pairing **at all**, I urge you to read it. Now. Immediately. Er…after you read this, anyway. :-)_

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**Japanese**

1,000 Yen is roughly equal to 10 American dollars. 100,000 Yen is about a thousand dollars   
Aibou – Partner   
Ano – Um…   
Chichi – Father (Your Own)   
Chisaii Houko – Little Treasure   
Ohayo – Good Morning

* * *

**Ding-Dong!**

Blinking rapidly, it took Ryou a moment to realize that it was his doorbell that had made that dinging sound. It hadn't been used in so long that he'd almost forgotten what it sounded like.

Tucking his bookmark into his dog-eared copy of 'The Three Musketeers', he padded quickly out of the den, anxious to find out who was at the door. He and Bakura almost never got visitors; especially unexpected ones. Reaching the front hall, he pulled open the door just in time to see a hand reach out to press the doorbell again. When the hand stopped in mid-reach, his eyes traced down the length of arm to find that the appendage was attached to Yugi. Behind his shorter friend, he could see Yami, Joey, Tristan, Téa, and Duke as well.

"Ano… Ohayo?" Ryou said, a question in his voice. He was extremely puzzled; it had been almost two months since they'd all been together last; in the park to perform the ritual to give all the yamis their own bodies, as a matter of fact. What were they all doing here?

"Good morning, Ryou," Yugi said pleasantly. "We just wanted to come over and visit for a little bit."

_And find out more about your surprisingly non-feminine yet **female** yami,_ Ryou finished in his head, surprisingly bitter. Yes, these people were his friends, but he had never been as close to them as they were to each other, as evidenced by their nonexistence in his life for the past six and a half weeks. But he supposed he wasn't being very charitable; they were probably all getting used to Yami having his own body, and helping him adjust to the modern world, and while they might have **wanted** to ask him and Bakura along on whatever outings they had planned, they couldn't be sure whether it would be welcome, now could they? After all, Bakura would never win the title of Miss Congeniality.

Though despite the fact that she looked nothing like Sandra Bullock, she did have a lot of her character's personality traits, not the least of which was the ability to eat five pieces of pizza and not gain an ounce. And let's not forget the dislike of any clothing that could be termed in the least bit 'feminine'…

But he was woolgathering again, and he should let the six of them in before they started to worry that Bakura had taken up her former habit of possessing his body.

"Well, I'm glad you did; it's been rather quiet around here now that school is out," Ryou said **mostly** honestly. "Come in; can I get you anything to drink? I bought some lemonade mix on my last trip to the store…"

They all smiled and nodded, so ten minutes later they were all settled in the den, drinking tall glasses of ice-cold lemonade.

"So…" Joey started off. "Ano…where is Bakura?" He looked around searchingly, as if perhaps the former tomb-raider was hiding behind a convenient lamp or chair.

"On the roof," Ryou answered, and a thump from the vicinity of the ceiling punctuated his statement, causing everyone to look upward briefly.

"The roof?" Duke asked blankly, green eyes blinking in confusion.

Ryou sighed and nodded. "That last big storm we had knocked a couple dozen shingles off. What with all the rain we've been getting, I'm worried that it's weakening the underlying structure and at some point in the near future I'm going to wake up in a bed full of water with a giant force-of-nature-made skylight overhead. I **could** have hired professionals to fix it, but it would have cost in excess of two hundred thousand yen, whereas 'Kura can do it herself for just the cost of the tiles."

"You mean to tell me that **Bakura** is on your roof, at this moment, nailing in roofing tiles?" Yami asked incredulously, jumping slightly as he heard another thump.

Ryou just blinked at the former spirit slowly. "That's what I said, wasn't it?" he asked, pointedly jerking his head in the direction of the sounds emanating from outside.

"Why would she do that?" Tristan asked.

"Why not?" Ryou asked, eyes squinching up in a frown. "When she found out I was planning to do it, she offered to instead. I'm glad, really; her sense of balance is much better than mine. I would have tried, and it would have been a valiant effort, but before I got any of the tiles nailed down, I probably would have slipped off the edge of the roof and broken my neck." He laughed ruefully into his glass.

Joey and Yugi tried, but couldn't hold back their chuckles. Duke quirked an eyebrow to hide his mirth, Tristan just had a completely contrived bland look of minor concern on his face, and Yami was looking upward with a worried expression.

"How long has she been up there?" Téa asked.

Turning slightly to check the large grandfather clock over in the far corner, Ryou said, "About two hours. She said it probably wouldn't take longer than three, so she should be down soon."

Frowning worriedly, Téa asked, "It's almost lunchtime; shouldn't she take a break?"

Ryou just shrugged, unconcerned. "She knows her limits; she'll be down when she's done."

"It is awfully hot outside," Yugi put in. "I wouldn't want her to get dehydrated. Maybe you should bring her some lemonade."

Ryou seemed to actually consider this idea. "Well, I would, but for three things. One, she's got her headphones on, and probably won't hear me if I call up to her; so in order to bring her some lemonade I'd have to climb up onto the roof, and I've already mentioned the possibly of my doing that and remaining alive, right? Two, she took a thermos of ice water up there with her, so I don't think she's in danger of heatstroke; remember, she **is** from Egypt."

"And three?" Yami asked, removing his gaze from the ceiling, having finally decided to give up on practicing his X-Ray vision.

"Like I said before, she'll probably be done soon, anyway, so what's the point? When she comes in, I'll get her a glass," Ryou stated. "But she probably won't want it."

"Why not?" Tristan frowned. "I mean, if I'd been up on the roof fixing shingles for several hours, even with a thermos of water, I'd still be parched when I was done."

"She retains water like a camel," Ryou said. "I'll be surprised if she actually even drank **half** of the water in that thermos."

At that moment a final loud, 'Thump!' was heard, and a minute later the sound of something landing on the front lawn, followed by the creaking of a tree limb, and another, softer, thump on the ground.

"What was that?" Joey asked.

Ryou pursed his lips. "If I had to guess…the first thump was the last nail going in; the second was Bakura's tool belt with the hammer, the nails, the spare shingles, and the water thermos hitting the ground; and then she probably jumped onto the cherry tree in the backyard, climbed down it to the bottom branch and then jumped off. The sound of her landing would have been the final thump." Taking another sip of his lemonade, he said mildly, "But that's just conjecture on my part, of course."

Everyone stared at him for a moment, taken aback by his calmness. Their gawking was interrupted by the sound of the backdoor bursting open and then slamming shut again. A resonant hum echoed off the walls into their ears and moments later resolved into the sound of someone singing.

That someone, to everyone but Ryou's surprise, was Bakura. The thief **swayed** down the hall, her hips rocking back and forth to the music as she sang the words under her breath: "One look could kill. My pain, your thrill…"

She had a surprisingly melodic voice, despite, or maybe **because** of her choice in material.

She was wearing a dark purple leotard under a pair of ragged jeans with holes in the knees. The aforementioned toolbelt was slung low across her hips, and did, indeed, contain all of the items Ryou had listed. Combat boots on her feet, a pair of headphones on her ears, and the Millennium Ring hanging from her neck completed her ensemble.

Joey and Tristan, of course, noticed the lack of a bra right away. The Ring hung right between her breasts, emphasizing their lack of restraining devices.

Her eyes were closed as she sang under her breath, but right before she reached the doorway, she halted. Eyes snapping open, she gave them a disbelieving look before tugging the headphones down around her neck and pressing a button on the side of the CD player clipped to her waist. The discordant hum of music emitting from the earpieces stopped. "Well…if it isn't the brat pack," she snarked. She turned a dark glare on the two oglers, who immediately turned away to stare off into thin air, whistling innocently.

Yami huffed, but said nothing, for which everyone – except Bakura, most likely – was grateful.

Wiping one hand across her sweat-beaded forehead and drying it on her dusty, dirt-smeared jeans, Bakura asked, "What are you doing here, anyway?" There was nothing more than idle curiosity in her tone, not even any hostility.

Yugi frowned. "Ryou is our friend; why wouldn't we come visit?" he asked, honestly confused.

Laughing, Bakura said, "Oh, he is, is he? School has been out for almost two months. Why, pray tell, is this the first time you managed to make your way over here since we had our little spell casting jaunt in the park?"

Everyone except Ryou and Yami shifted uncomfortably.

"Ano, well…" Yugi started, before trailing off. He really didn't know what to say that was, well, **tactful**.

"We're all afraid of you, to varying degrees," Tristan said candidly. "Hell, my **sister** scares me when she's PMS-ing, and **she's** never tried to take over the world. We were all edging on the side of caution what with you being an unknown quantity, and all."

Duke coughed, trying to hide his laughter.

Bakura scowled. "Wimps," she pronounced. "My hikari has more spine than you lot. Hells, so does a worm, and they're invertebrates." Whirling on one booted heel, she stalked out of the room without another word.

Ryou snorted and shook his head.

Téa groaned and slouched back into the chair she was sitting in, hands coming up to cover her face. "She has a point, you guys," she said reluctantly, voice muffled by her hands.

"Yeah, she does," Tristan agreed.

Mentally sighing at the repentant looks on his friends' – and yes, they were his friends, though maybe not as close as he might have liked – faces, Ryou said, "I understand why you didn't. In some ways, the old Bakura was scarier than the old Marik."

"Which brings to mind another point – we haven't talked to Malik since that day, either," Yugi pointed out, chagrined. "I mean, he was the one who **found** the spell, and aside from a, 'Yes, we want to use it,' I'm not even sure Yami or I said thank you."

"You did," Ryou told him. "I believe your exact words were: 'Yes, we want to use it; thank you so much for finding this spell.' And neither he nor Marik seem miffed that you haven't shown up lately, so I think you're off the hook there."

"Wait, you've seen Malik and Marik?" Duke asked.

Ryou blinked at him. "Of course I have. They're the only two people Bakura's managed to make friends with…well, the first two, anyway. She plays poker with them on Tuesdays."

"Ah, so you have Tuesday nights free from her?" Yami asked.

Shaking his head, Ryou said, "No; I should have said **we** play poker with them on Tuesdays. We go over to the Ishtars' apartment, Malik cooks dinner – always vegetarian, which Bakura complains about – and she, Marik and Malik play poker while Rishid and I – and occasionally Isis if she's free – talk."

"You and Rishid?" Téa said blankly. "What do you two talk about?"

"Egypt, what else?" Ryou said practically. "I mean, Bakura might have learned English and Japanese from our mind-link, but my hieratic Egyptian is still spotty because she wasn't completely literate. And Rishid knows lots of stories about Yami's reign; granted, most of them are folktales which probably don't have much substance in reality, but it's still interesting."

The others exchanged slightly disbelieving glances. None of them ever thought Ryou would end up friends with the Ishtars, though Bakura was practically a given.

"So, ah, what exactly was dat song Bakura was singin'?" Joey asked, valiantly trying to change the subject to something less…odd.

Ryou thought for a moment, then said, "I believe that was 'Poison' by Alice Cooper."

"Fitting," the blond pronounced.

"It's actually a love song," Ryou told him, slightly irked.

"Does **she** know that?" Tristan asked, looking back and forth from Ryou to the door through which Bakura had left.

Ryou just gave him an enigmatic smile.

"So, does she sing in the shower, too?" Tristan continued, bemusedly running a hand through his hair.

"Hums, actually; why, you need more information for your masturbation fantasy fodder?" Ryou asked sweetly.

Joey choked, and his face went beet red, pretty much confirming his diagnosis.

"I'd thank you to keep your puerile, perverted thoughts **off** my girlfriend," Ryou said firmly.

Joey gave a strangled sound of what was possibly agreement, but could also have been him choking on his esophagus. Ryou chose to take it as the former, and subsided back in his chair.

"So…girlfriend?" Duke asked.

Ryou nodded hesitantly.

"How did that happen?" the dice duelist asked curiously. "Not that I know everything that's been going on, but I was under the impression you didn't like each other very much."

Ryou shot him an annoyed look. "Things change," he said simply.

Hoping to cool down the hostilities in the room, Yugi offered, "Yami likes the shower, too. **A lot**. I swear he can spend an hour in there."

Yami glared at him darkly. "Aibou, if **you** had lived in a time without indoor plumbing, you would **never** take the opportunity of being able to bathe daily for granted."

"Mm-hm," Ryou agreed.

Téa just sighed inaudibly. "Boys," she mumbled, too low for any of them to hear.

"So, ano…what have you and Bakura been up to the past few weeks?" Yugi asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "I mean, that invertebrate comment of hers…and the music and roofing shingles…seems like she's learned an awful lot in a short time."

Ryou shrugged uncomfortably. "Not really. She knows pretty much what I know; she learned it through our bond when we were still sharing the same body, and consequently the same brain. Like you and Yami, I would suppose."

Comprehension dawned on Yugi's face, and Yami just nodded in agreement with Ryou's statement.

"And didn't we do vertebrates and invertebrates last year in biology?" Tristan added.

"Yeah," Ryou confirmed. "But, to answer your question, Yugi, things have been pretty

quiet…comparatively, anyway."

"Well dat's…vague," Joey joked. "C'mon, Ryou, you gotta give us a little more dan dat. I mean…Bakura was almost…polite. For her, anyway."

"She isn't acting any different than she has since she got back," Ryou said, frowning bemusedly.

"She isn't?" Duke asked.

"No. Except for wanting to kill you guys and collect all the Millennium Items, she really isn't even acting much different from when she first got here," Ryou observed.

"You're kidding," Téa said.

"Nope."

"I never did get why she wanted all da Millennium Items in da first place," Joey complained. "I mean, I heard somptin' about all of 'em together givin' a person da key ta some dark power, but I asked Isis, and she said only da Pharaoh coulda used it."

"She probably just didn't want **me** to have the power, which was why she went after them," Yami tossed off.

Ryou looked at them, puzzled. "No, that's not it," he said.

"Then why?" Yugi asked.

Carefully setting down his glass of lemonade on a convenient coaster, Ryou gave them all a measuring look. "Well, now, you remember the story of Kuru Eruna, right?" he asked. Proceeding before any of them had a chance to respond, he asked Yami, in a conversational tone, "How does it feel to know that your Puzzle was created by burning the bodies of hundreds of innocent **live** people, and then boiling their blood in the gold?"

Yami blanched. So did Yugi and Tristan. Téa flinched and looked like she might faint, Duke's eyes went wide, and Joey just looked disgusted and faintly sick.

Ryou sighed. "Look, Bakura lost her whole family to make those items; she is, and was, the last remaining inhabitant of Thief's Town. To her mind, **all** the Millennium Items belong to her because she has a blood bond with them. And the fact that she ended up inside the Millennium Ring only cemented that thought in her mind."

"Wha…what does the Ring have to do with…this?" Yami asked, after shaking off his shock. He'd heard the story of Kuru Eruna, of course, but he'd never thought about what that would mean in such…blatant terms.

"One of the Ring's powers is the ability to locate other Millennium Items," Ryou reminded him. "It must have seemed like divine justice, for her to be trapped inside the one Item that would allow her to find the others."

The group contemplated that for a moment, before Yugi finally got up the nerve to ask, "Does she still want them?" He fingered the Puzzle around his neck, an exact duplicate of the one around Yami's neck. Each yami/hikari pair had ended up with doubles of their Items as part of the spell; they were Millennium Items in their own right, but both drew upon the same well of magic, so it wasn't like the power had been doubled, just that there were two means of using it.

"I don't think so," Ryou said, after mulling the question over for a moment. "The seven items together **are** the key to a dark power, and Isis was right about only the Pharaoh being able to use them for that purpose – but there is a second use for all seven Items."

Yami started. "There was? Is?" he corrected himself.

"All seven Items together would grant the bearer one wish," Ryou said simply. "When Bakura first woke up here, she forgot about the second power that the Items held. All she remembered was that her goal was to collect all of the Items; she didn't remember why. So she went after them because of the first power, since it was all she did remember."

"What wish would she have made, though?" Duke asked. "To be rich?"

Ryou slowly shook his head. "No. She wanted to wish that the Items had never been made."

Yami's intake of breath was loudly audible. "But that would have changed the course of history over the last five thousand years!" he exclaimed, appalled.

"Back when she started her quest it would only have changed the events of a decade," Ryou pointed out. "Temporal paradox would indicate that her wish wasn't possible, but then, temporal mechanics are science, while wishes are magic, so…" Giving Yami a beseeching look, he said, "She was hurting, and trying to fix everything that had gone wrong in her life the only way she knew how. I agree her methods weren't the best, but they were all she had. Can you really blame her for what she was trying to do?"

Yami let out a shuddering breath. "I…no, Ryou, I cannot," he said at length, conceding that he had been wrong; in this situation, at least.

They all fell silent, just trying to take in what they'd learned so unexpectedly. Téa, surprisingly, was the one to break the silence.

"So, Ryou," she started. "You never did tell us what you've been doing these past few weeks. Besides going over to the Ishtars' for dinner on Tuesdays, anyway."

"Nothing much. 'Kura and I spent the first week getting one of the spare rooms habitable again. Would you believe there was a raccoon living in the attic, and I didn't even know it?" he asked, nose wrinkling up.

"No way," Joey said, a grin tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Yes way," Ryou retorted. "I couldn't figure out how to get it to leave and was about to call an exterminator. Luckily, Bakura knew how to set up a snare."

"A snare like you'd use when camping to catch dinner with?" Tristan qualified.

"You didn't…eat it, did you?" Duke asked worriedly, nose wrinkling at the thought. He was a borderline vegetarian on a good day, but to eat a **wild** **raccoon**? The thing was probably disease-ridden.

"No." Ryou rolled his eyes. "Bakura wanted to, but I pointed out that I didn't know how to either skin or cook a raccoon, so we let it go in Domino City Park. I think it took up residence in a large sycamore tree."

"So after you got rid of the rodent…" Yami prompted.

"Well, actually it took another week before we evicted it; in the meantime we went shopping," Ryou told them.

"Shopping?" Joey asked.

"Well, while I'm perfectly willing to share my clothes with Bakura, now that she's not sharing my body they don't really fit anymore," Ryou pointed out. "She's three inches taller and twenty pounds lighter than me, for starters. If it wasn't for Téa's help, I think the both of us would have gone crazy trying to figure out what size she is."

"Bakura…in a mall…shopping for clothes…" Yami said slowly, a wondering, slightly horrified look on his face.

Ryou nodded sagely. "Yes, one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse, or so I'm told," he stated matter-of-factly.

Joey and Tristan snorted, and even Yugi had a hard time holding back his giggles. Duke chuckled lowly and Téa just rolled her eyes, thankful she'd managed to help Ryou and Bakura without having to join them on their shopping expedition.

"Actually, I think Bakura hated clothes shopping more than I did," Ryou reflected. "Four hours in the mall…" Joey and Tristan's eyes went wide and they both faked dying. Duke shrugged as if four hours were nothing. Téa shook her head witheringly and Yugi laughed at their antics. "I didn't think my feet would ever be the same, but Bakura was starting to look downright twitchy after the third store. I swear, I feared for the clerks' lives."

"The clerks?" Yami asked worriedly.

"They kept coming up to us, asking us if we needed any help," Ryou said exasperatedly. "If we **had**, then I would have asked; as it was, they were a complete intrusion. In every store we went to, two or three of them would approach us, one after the other. By the time I sent the eighth one away, I thought for sure Bakura was going to send the next one to the Shadow Realm. Hell, **I** wanted to send the next one to the Shadow Realm. I **never** want to do that again." He ran a hand through his hair raggedly, as if remembering the chaos.

"I'm afraid you'll have to, at some point," Téa pointed out. "Clothes don't last forever, you know."

"Uh-uh. We're living the Internet Age; there isn't anything, including clothing, that you can't order online," Ryou corrected tiredly.

Ticking the points off on his fingers, Yugi said, "Okay, so you fixed up a spare room, went clothes shopping for the first and last time, and evicted a raccoon from your attic. What happened after that?"

"Malik and Marik showed up," Ryou recalled. "On the second Monday after we did the spell. Apparently Isis had gotten conned into hosting some sort of luncheon for the Museum patrons, and neither of them wanted to stick around."

"So this was the start of your Tuesday night dinners, then?" Yami asked.

Ryou looked thoughtful. "Well, I wasn't here when they first showed up, so I don't know exactly what happened. But they and Bakura talked; I don't know what about, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with Marik saying something along the lines of men being better fighters than women."

"Why do you think that?" Téa asked, as if afraid of the answer.

"Because when I got back from the grocery store, I found them all in the living room, Malik nursing a sprained wrist, and Marik yelling for Bakura to let him go," Ryou returned dryly. "She had him pinned against the wall with one arm, and he couldn't move."

"One arm?" Duke asked, frowning. "But he should have been able to get out of that."

Ryou scratched the side of his nose, hiding a smile. "True, except Bakura's other arm was holding a knife to a…sensitive part of his anatomy. As long as he didn't move, he wasn't in danger of losing it."

Everyone else except Téa flinched and unconsciously covered their midsections.

"What makes you so sure dat Marik started it, though?" Joey finally asked.

"You remember what he said to her when we were all last together, right?" Ryou reminded him.

"Yeah, but dat don't necessarily mean…" Joey started.

"And then, of course, there was the fact that I came into the room in time to hear him finally give in and apologize for calling her a 'weak woman who couldn't fight if her life depended on it,'" Ryou quoted.

"He didn't," Tristan commented, laughter and shock vying for domination on his face.

"He did," Ryou replied dryly. "And once he apologized, she put the knife away and let him go. Marik's never done anything that stupid since. Well, to Bakura, anyway."

Remembering one of the minor details of Ryou's riveting story, Téa asked, "What happened to Malik's arm? You said he sprained his wrist?"

"Ah, yeah, Malik told me about that," Ryou said, trying and failing to repress soft sounds of mirth. "Apparently Marik insulting Bakura didn't come until **after** he bullied Malik into challenging her to an arm-wrestling match. Malik wasn't really into it and he only gave a half-hearted effort at best; he wasn't prepared for how strong Bakura is, and his wrist got twisted when she slammed it against the table. I ended up wrapping his wrist in an Ace bandage for him before they went back to their apartment, and he invited us over for dinner as a combined thank you and apology. And now we get together every week to break up the monotony."

"And they say nothing interesting ever happens in Domino City," Duke said dryly.

"Outside a' duels, or stuff involvin' ancient Egypt and dark spirits, anyway," Joey concluded.

"Well, Marik **was** a dark spirit, so I don't really think your qualifier works, Joey," Ryou chided him gently. "In any event, it's certainly a lot less quiet around here than it has been in…well, since chichi and I moved in."

"How so?" Yugi prodded.

After thinking for a moment, Ryou said, "Well, they get together on Thursday nights to play darts – the Egyptian way."

"How's that different from the regular way?" Tristan asked.

"There were no darts in ancient Egypt, so people used knives," Ryou explained. "Marik doesn't like it all that much; he has terrible aim. Malik is pretty good at close range, but as far as I know, Bakura is the reigning champ."

Visions of bloody, severed body parts dancing through her head, Téa shuddered. Eyes wide, she asked, "Isn't that dangerous?"

Ryou shrugged. "Not very. They play outside – they've set up a board on a tree in the backyard."

"What else do those three get up to?" Yami asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Well…" Blowing his bangs out of his face with a heavy breath, Ryou said, "I wasn't there for most of this, so I'll tell you what 'Kura told me. But apparently, Marik wanted to learn how to drive a motorcycle, and somehow managed to talk Malik into teaching him. Bakura came along in case someone needed to call for an ambulance. Thankfully, one wasn't needed, but Malik refused to ever let Marik near his bike again, so that put an end to his lessons. Bakura managed to convince Malik that **she** could manage to drive the motorcycle without trying to run over birds–"

"Birds?" Duke broke in.

Ryou nodded tiredly. "Yes, birds. Malik was giving the lesson in Domino Square; you know, basically one big cobblestone parking lot with a few trees and statues?" When they all nodded, he continued, "And you know that statues attract pigeons, right?" Again waiting for their nods, he finished, "Well, according to Bakura, Marik thought it would be fun to try and see how many pigeons he could hit, and he was so focused on the birds that he almost ran into a statue of the Cat in the Hat."

"I take it they were practicing near the Dr. Seuss exhibit?" Tristan asked.

"You got it, Tristan," Ryou confirmed. "Anyway, so Malik gave in, and 'Kura refrained from making kamikaze raids on poultry, and now they meet every Thursday and Sunday afternoon in Domino Square so Malik can teach her how to drive a motorcycle." He looked slightly bemused. "It's a useful skill, I suppose, if one overlooks the fact that other than you and Kaiba, Malik is the only person we know who even owns a motorcycle, so she won't get much chance to **use** those skills. My father leaves his car in the garage when he's off on digs, but I won't be able to get my license for a while yet, and driving a car is just a **little** bit different from driving a motorcycle."

"Well, it's keeping her busy and out of trouble," Yami proclaimed. "That's the important thing."

"Well, no," Ryou disagreed. "I think the important thing is that she's enjoying it."

Before another fight could start, Yugi asked, "So what about you? You've told us how Bakura's keeping busy, but what have **you** been doing, Ryou?"

"Reading, mostly." Ryou gestured to the paperback he'd left on the side table. "Which is one hobby that Bakura and I share, apparently."

"Really?" Téa asked.

"Yes; despite all evidence, magic and dark spirits to the contrary, things are normally very quiet in Domino City," Ryou said. "Bakura only spends a small portion of her time with Malik and Marik, and she doesn't like television. I suggested she read my old school textbooks so she could learn more about the modern world; she finished them in less than three days. Then she started in on chichi's college textbooks, and the few novels we have lying around, but those didn't last much longer."

"A fast reader, then?" Yugi asked.

Ryou nodded in agreement. "She practically **devours** the words. She went through everything in our library that she deemed 'interesting' in less than three weeks. She got so bored she actually read my father's copy of War and Peace," he said. Turning reflective, he added, "I don't think **he's** ever read it, though."

"You're kidding," Joey said, nose wrinkling at the thought of that much reading.

"No," Ryou laughed. "She said it was mildly interesting, but as dry as the dust in a hundred-year abandoned tomb. When she was starting to eye the encyclopedias, I dragged her down to Domino Library and got her a library card. She goes there two or three times a week."

"Two or three times a **week**?" Yugi echoed.

Ryou shrugged. "There's a maximum allotment of how many books you're allowed to check out; six books per visit. She would steal extras sometimes, but she said that got old after the first few times she did it. It wasn't a challenge." He conveniently left out the part about the first book he'd made her check out being one of those he'd talked to Téa about. He'd never seen Bakura blush before, but it had been gratifying to see she could turn as red as he did, despite her tanned skin. Thankfully, she did read it – and so did he, actually, to brush up on a few things – though ever since, she'd seemed on tenterhooks around him when it came to anything having to do with their relationship's physical aspect.

"Still up to her thieving ways, I see," Yami said disapprovingly.

Ryou shrugged. "She wants to keep her skills sharp. Why else do you think she broke into Kaiba's place?"

Joey coughed. "She stole somptin' from **Kaiba**? And she's still **alive**?"

Ryou grinned modestly. "He called here last week; I think he asked her to help him redesign his security system. Besides, she gave the disk she stole back, Yami, you saw her."

Yami dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "You sound like you're **proud** of her," he stated, appalled.

Ryou didn't so much as blink. "I am," he said simply.

"For being a **thief**?" Joey exclaimed.

"For being a **great** thief," Ryou corrected. "It's not any different than your being proud of Yugi's dueling skills," he directed to Yami, "or all of us being proud of Téa's dancing abilities, or Duke's game. Bakura is a fantastic thief, and while that may not be a vocation that people put much stock in, there's no reason I can't be proud that she's good at it. Besides, she broke into the Kaiba mansion and got out of it without anybody knowing the wiser. Not even Pegasus' goons managed that, though granted they weren't trying to remain undetected."

"But she gives the stuff back, you said?" Téa asked, trying to dissolve the tension that had built up in the room.

Ryou rubbed the back of his neck, discomfited. "Most of it, I think. Kaiba's CD, the library's books… I think she might have stolen the roofing nails from the hardware store. It's never anything big; at least, I've never found anything."

Yami opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the return of Bakura. She stuck her head around the doorway, and her eyes widened fractionally before the rest of her body followed her into the room.

"What, you're still here?" Bakura asked in genuine surprise.

"Yes, we're still here, tomb-robber," Yami gritted out. He obviously wasn't pleased that she'd kept up her larcenous activities, no matter how harmless.

"Aw, you sure know how to make a girl feel loved," she said in a bored, sarcastic tone. When Yami huffed and settled back into the couch next to Yugi, she turned to Ryou. "Are they staying for lunch, aibou? Because I don't think we have enough bread to make sandwiches for them all, especially since the Human Stomach is with them."

Joey glowered at the nickname, but didn't say anything. It was true, after all. He did, however, elbow Tristan in the ribs when the brunet started chuckling under his breath.

"I don't know," Ryou told her, before turning back to the group and asking, "Do you want to stay? I could order pizza, or something."

"I have a dance class in two hours, and I promised my mother I'd help her make brownies for our new neighbors before then," Téa declined.

"Joey promised to help me fix my motorcycle," Tristan begged off. Ryou was okay, but he really wasn't ready to spend so much time with Bakura. Besides, he and Joey hadn't spent much time together lately. "Since he's the one who scratched it up in the first place," he added irritatedly.

"I did not!" Joey shot back.

"I have to get back to my shop," Duke said. "The summer help are all rookies and I'm afraid they'll break something."

Yami's glare silenced the bickering duo, and they subsided. "We promised Grandpa we'd watch the shop this afternoon," Yugi said regretfully. "Maybe some other time?"

Bakura smirked. "They could join us on Tuesday; I'm sure the Ishtars wouldn't mind." There was a calculating gleam in her eyes that Ryou knew well; if any of them showed up to play poker, they'd quickly find themselves relieved of all their money.

Tristan was quicker than most people gave him credit for; he knew what that look meant as well. "More sheep to fleece?" he drawled.

Bakura barked a laugh at his perception. "Like lambs to the slaughter, Taylor, the lot of you."

"I don't really like poker," Yugi said, not wanting to out-and-out refuse the invitation.

"My old man never gave me much good advice, but he did say never ta bet anything ya weren't willin' ta lose," Joey said succinctly. "An' I ain't about ta gamble wit' da t'ree 'a ya, sorry."

Téa shrugged. "I'd go along with it, but I probably wouldn't last very long."

"Well, why don't you call me sometime tomorrow, and maybe we could arrange to go see a movie this weekend?" Ryou said, unwilling to let this opportunity to spend time with his friends slip through his fingers. He wasn't a very outgoing person; the odds he'd ever manage to make friends outside of this group were slim. Besides, it was nice not having to hide anything having to with Egypt, yamis or magic.

"That sounds good," Yugi agreed happily, and was quickly echoed by the rest of the group.

After that, there didn't seem to be much left to say, so they all took their leave after promising to stay in touch more over the summer. Téa gave Ryou a hug and told him to call her in there were any 'problems' – i.e., girl type questions – she could help with. Yugi and Yami were the last to leave, because Yugi wanted to invite Ryou and Bakura to join him, Yami and his grandfather on their trip to the beach later in the summer. He'd been planning to ask everyone, but wanted to make sure the other yami and hikari pair knew they were invited.

Closing the door behind them, Ryou sighed in relief as he leaned back against the door.

"Glad they're gone?" Bakura asked, an odd note to her voice.

Ryou glared at her. "I never should have told you that I could read lips. You were having **entirely** too much fun at my expense."

Bakura grinned widely – a **real** grin – and said with faked innocence, "What? Me?"

"Yes, you," Ryou growled. "You kept mouthing the words to that song. If you'd gone on much longer I probably would have embarrassed myself by jumping you right then and there."

Chuckling softly, Bakura started singing the words she'd previously only whispered. "Your mouth, so hot. Your web, I'm caught. Your skin, so wet. Black lace on sweat…"

"Ohhh…" Ryou groaned, head falling back against the door as his eyes closed. "Are you **trying** to kill me?" he asked in an almost conversational tone.

"No, little treasure; I'm trying to turn you on," Bakura said bluntly, pleased with the flush she got in response. Striding forward, she came to a stop in front of her boyfriend. "And it seems as if I've succeeded," she added, one hand coming up to cup the front of his tented khakis.

"Ah!" Ryou squeaked and instinctively arched into her caressing hand. "Bakura, what…? What brought this on?" he asked breathlessly, body heating up in response to her ministrations. Bakura had **never** been this forward before. Since she'd first solidified in the park, they hadn't gone much beyond kissing, Bakura seeming reluctant to move forward. Ryou was fine with that – for the time being, anyway, especially since he'd never done the relationship thing before – but he had wondered why she seemed so nervous about getting more intimate. That nervousness was **definitely** not apparent now.

Bakura blinked and her hand stopped its motion, almost as if she hadn't realized what she was doing. She backed away, abashed, the lustful look on her face giving way to poignant tenderness mixed with…shame? Through their mind-link, he felt how confused she was. It was like an emotional war was waging inside her: what her body wanted versus what her heart was ready for. The funny thing was, it didn't seem like her thoughts were as conflicted as he would have expected.

It was several moments before her thoughts gathered enough to answer. "I realized that I'd been avoiding this. Avoiding…you," she said plainly. "I was…afraid." Her head ducked as she said this last softly, as if she had a hard time admitting to the weakness.

Slight worry and anxiety caused Ryou to let the circumstances of their proximal positions fade into the background as he asked softly, "Afraid of what, 'Kura?"

"Of…myself." This admission was said even more softly than the previous one had been. "I…" She took a shuddering breath. "I don't want to hurt you, Ryou," she said baldly. "I don't want to force you into anything, and I don't want to push you away. But I don't know how to go forward from here…how fast to go, how slow to go, what to do…and I'm afraid I'll end up hurting you anyway, without meaning to."

Brow furrowing in thought, Ryou mulled over her words. _Okay, judging from her actions, this obviously has to do with sex…and judging from her words, she's afraid she'll push me – either into something I'm not ready for, or away from her by trying **not** to push me. So, how to reassure her…?_

Moving into her, Ryou let his arms slip around her hunched shoulders. He looked up into her eyes and, arching into her now-still hand, said, "There isn't anything that you could want from me that I wouldn't want to give you."

Her eyes dilated as he moved against her and she gasped, "Are you sure?"

"I'm always sure with you, Bakura," Ryou told her, before reluctantly pulling back. "But are **you** sure?"

She shook her head slowly. "I'm sure about **you**," she assured him. "I just…I'm having a hard time compromising."

"Compromising?" Ryou asked, confused.

"I want you," she stated plainly. "But I'm…afraid of wanting you. Afraid of what I feel for you; that I won't be enough for you." She ducked her head at this admission. "I don't know how to reconcile those opposing feelings. And I really don't know what to do next…how to have a relationship. I'm flying blind here, Ryou."

"And you think I'm not?" Ryou asked wryly. "I don't have any idea what I'm doing, either."

She looked startled and slightly relieved at this, but still wasn't reassured. "I've always known what to do before," she griped softly. "Being unsure is…nerve-wracking."

"And scary as all hell, too," Ryou agreed.

"I don't have a fucking clue what I'm doing here," Bakura chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck uneasily.

Snuggling closer to her, Ryou said, "But that doesn't mean we're going to mess it up."

"It doesn't?" she asked, and there was a slightly plaintive tone to her voice.

Ryou shook his head, holding her gaze steadily. "No, Bakura. As long as we talk to each other, we'll be okay. We can work out any problems we might have before they get too big."

"All right, chisaii houko," she said at length. "I trust you."

And as she pressed her lips to his, Ryou couldn't help but think that sometimes those three little words that meant so much…weren't always 'I **love** you.'


	3. Wonder

**Wonder**

* * *

**In Which Bakura Expresses Her More Private Emotions On Paper**

* * *

**Japanese**

Aishiteru (mo) – I love you (too). A very formal declaration of romantic love; akin to a marriage proposal. It's not as basic as 'I love you'; it's more along the lines of 'I am in love with you'. Pretty much the same as a vow of undying love: I will love you forever and always, until the end of time, etc.  
Bishounen – Beautiful Boy. Refers to all those lovely men in Japanese anime/manga who have that effeminate, delicate, scrumptiously sexy look.  
Ecchi – (Playfully) Pervert/Perverted  
Koi – Lover  
Sennen – Thousand Year (Millennium)

* * *

**Egyptian**

Eöte – Father  
Máau – Mother  
Söne – Sister

* * *

_Lyrics are from 'I Think You're Beautiful' by Amy Dalley_

* * *

They all wonder, you know. Wonder why I changed so much after my second stint in the Shadow Realm. Most of them don't even realize that I didn't change very much; I act pretty much the same way as I did before, only I don't go around wanting to kill or maim people, and I've stopped my quest for the Sennen Items.

Then why would they wonder why I changed, if they don't even realize I did? Because they see me with Ryou, and they all wonder why in Ra's name I'm so nice to him.

I don't get that, really. I mean, sure, I wasn't always nice to the kid, but it was mostly mind games (literally, I yelled at him in his soul room) to keep him cowed and away from my business…including the fact of my true gender. I thought I'd hidden my secret extremely well, but once I got back from the Shadow Realm, he told me he'd known pretty much from the start.

He always was observant. He never said much, but he saw everything. Especially if it involved me…

Why he found me so fascinating, I'll never know. I'm just glad he did, and still does.

I used to rail at him for being weak – Ra, who am I kidding? I was yelling at him in place of myself, the true weakling – but he had a power all his own. The power of observation.

Which is a very important form of knowledge. And knowledge is power, so it's no wonder he never believed me when I told him he was weak. Physically, maybe, but then I'm the first to admit that doesn't really mean much, especially in today's world.

It's always been about power, you understand. Back in Egypt, no woman had power; even the Queen, who might have had status, would have nowhere to turn if her husband decided to throw her out on the street. I knew from the moment that I watched Kuru Eruna burn that I could never be weak if I wanted to stay alive long enough to avenge my family.

It wasn't that hard; I was seven, old enough to realize what I had to do, but young enough yet that no one could tell I was a girl if I didn't dress like one. And I had never liked wearing skirts of any kind; hell, I didn't even like wearing kohl, so it was no hardship to dress like a man. I had always preferred perfecting my thieving skills to weaving cloth or making bread with the women and by the time the massacre happened, I was a better thief than men twice my age. I built my reputation up slowly, and before long, everyone knew of Bakure, the King of Thieves.

Ah, yes, my name is Bakura in this time, right? Well, back then it was, too; Bakura is the feminine form. Bakure, however, is the masculine one, and since I wanted everyone to think I was a guy…

It's why I was so shocked to wake up here in the twenty-first century and find that my name, my **real** name, was my host's last name. No one **had** last names back in Egypt (or anywhere for that matter) five thousand years ago, and it was…odd…to think that my name was now a family one.

But Ryou **is** my family, so…

Anyway, they all wonder why I care so much for Ryou. Why? I mean, the Pharaoh is in love with **his** light, why can't I be with mine?

Not that I would use the word love…at least, not in a romantic context…not yet, anyway.

Oh, who am I kidding? Certainly not myself…

But they wonder. They don't ask, no, they're too afraid. I wouldn't kill them for asking, but neither would I answer. It's none of their business – my feelings, that is.

The reason, however, is because he accepts me. Even back in the beginning, when I was cruel to him, he accepted me. He didn't understand me. But he accepted me. And that was…flooring. No one had ever accepted me…except my family. Máau, Eöte, my söne…

And they are all long dead, their bodies not even allowed the dignity of decaying and becoming part of the sand in the great deserts.

Ryou is alive…partly because of me and what I went through back in ancient Egypt. I suppose it is true what they say: every cloud has a silver lining.

I wonder if he could sense the connection we had even when we first met… It would explain so many things.

Ryou didn't accept the fact that I apparently wanted to kill his friends, but he did accept the fact that I had a **reason** for doing so.

That was one of our major points of contention back then – he knew I had a reason for doing what I was doing, but he didn't know what it was. And every time he asked…I wanted to answer, I truly did, if only because in order to **give** him the answer, I had to know it myself in the first place.

The Pharaoh didn't remember anything of his past, and while I **did** remember most of mine, even I didn't know why I was so angry the world, or at him, specifically. I never wanted Yami's blood for the deaths in Thief's Town; I wanted him to acknowledge that the father he loved so much was a murderer, that even the great Pharaoh Akunamukanon was not perfect, like a chosen Son of Ra was purported to be. That the Sennen Puzzle which he wore around his own neck had been forged in the fires of hell on earth, blood and screams going into its making.

But I died – was killed, by Yami, as a matter of fact – before I could tell him what his father had done.

All right, so maybe I had a little residual resentment about my murder, and **that's** why I wanted to hurt him. It seemed rather ironic; his father had killed my family, and **he** killed me. Maybe not with their own hands, but it was by their orders. My soul was stuffed, kicking and screaming and angry as all the nine levels of hell, into that Ring, so why should anyone be surprised that I was bitter? My rage had built up over the five thousand years I was trapped in that Ring, and had grown way out of proportion. Sometimes I even scared myself…

But I don't think I ever really scared Ryou. Oh, he might have been afraid for his friends' lives, but never for his own. He knew he could stop me from going too far – when even I wasn't sure he could, wasn't sure anyone could stop me, not even myself – and that I would never **purposely** hurt him.

I've tried my best to make up for everything I've put him through, and I think I'm succeeding. But I'm not sure, even with our mind-link, that he knows how I truly feel about him.

Which is why I'm doing this. I just hope he realizes how much this means; to me as well as him.

* * *

Coming into his room that evening after his and 'Kura's regularly scheduled evening 'date' (which was really nothing more than an hour or two after dinner that they spent together, normally watching television or reading, which wasn't very romantic, but since they were almost always curled up against each other, they thought it counted as dates), Ryou was startled to find a roll of **parchment** lying on his pillow. The only one who could have put it there was Bakura, but why wouldn't she just give it to him herself? Or tell him what it said?

_Why do you think?_ Ryou asked himself sarcastically. _She obviously wasn't comfortable being here to see my reaction to whatever it is she wrote – which probably means this is something along the lines of the ancient Egyptian tomb-robber's version of a love letter._

The thought actually made him slightly giddy. No one had ever written him a love letter before – not that anyone besides Bakura had ever been in the **position** to do so, but he'd always thought that even when he ended up with a girlfriend, if anyone wrote love letters, it would be him. Never mind the fact that he had not a poetic bone in his body, and despite his love of books, he had **no** way with words.

_But then again, neither does Bakura,_ a little voice in his head pointed out. _Maybe she found it easier to write it down than say it._

Shaking himself out of his self-imposed daze, he realized he'd just been standing there for almost ten minutes, contemplating the roll of parchment, when he could be **reading** it.

With that thought, he plopped down on his bed and snatched up the missive, carefully untying the blood-red ribbon and unrolling it.

The first thing he noticed were the hieroglyphs that edged the parchment: the ones for 'Life', 'Love', and 'Eternity' repeating over and over in an endless march around the borders.

_Eternal love?_ he thought, heart fluttering at the possibilities. His eyes scanned down, and he began to read.

_Ryou,_

_I've never been good with words. Surely you've noticed this._

_Definitely,_ he thought, amused.

_But since I've been trying to tell you how I feel about you for over six months and I keep failing at it, I thought I'd try writing down what I wanted to say to you._

_Let's hope I manage to actually use more than one word this time, shall we? _

Ryou's face flushed slightly at the memory and he chuckled. He could quite clearly remember the event Bakura was referring to. It was the first time he'd realized how ticklish his other was. And other things…

It was just over three weeks ago, just three months after she'd gotten her own body. It had been raining for days – so much so that it actually got **cold**, cold enough that Ryou had lit a fire in the fireplace. Or, rather, Bakura had shown Ryou how to light a fire without using matches.

They'd started kissing in front of the fire – well, actually, they'd left kissing behind after the first five seconds and almost immediately proceeded on to making out – hands roaming over each other's bodies, both over **and** under their clothing. Which, if he'd bothered to stop his activities long enough to let his brain come back online so he could think, would probably have had him blushing and apologizing for touching her like that, even though he could tell – in several ways, their mind-link being the least of them – that she didn't mind; she reveled in it, in fact.

Bakura had apparently gotten tired of having her shirt bunched up around her midriff, so she'd removed it, leaving her in only a **very** flimsy white tanktop. Once her lips were back on his, however, any shyness he might have felt at her lack of clothing was quickly lost in the maelstrom of sensation that being so close to her caused inside of him. His hands ran up her back, wrapping around her waist, his thumbs rubbing rhythmically against her stomach.

And she broke away from their kiss and burst out into giggles.

At first Ryou wasn't sure what had happened, but after a moment he realized that she must be ticklish on her stomach, and his continued actions were the cause of her prolonged laughter. Slowly letting his fingers' movements come to a stop, he just lay there on the carpet, Bakura perched on his lap, a soft smile playing about his lips as he watched her laugh; genuinely, freely, and in complete and utter happiness, unfettered by doubts or reservation, the ghosts of her past forgotten for this one brief moment in time.

He'd never seen her look so unguarded before.

Or so beautiful.

When she finally calmed down and looked at him, her face arrested at the sight of his smile. Her gaze flicked away from his, and she smoothed her shirt down over her stomach in discomfiture.

Her actions only served to draw his gaze to her chest, however. The tanktop she was wearing was not only thin, but also practically see-through. He could see the small brown nubs of her nipples clearly through the soft cotton, the slight swells of her breasts unmistakably evident underneath the cloth.

The sight caused his face to heat up and his pants to tighten, the second a fact which she could not help but notice thanks to her position in his lap. Head shooting up, she looked at him almost as if she'd never seen him before; an expression of both fright and bewilderment crossing her face. "Wh-why are you looking at me like that?" she demanded softly, verbally sidestepping his physical state for the moment in favor of trying to put him on the offensive. She appeared completely flustered, her arms crossed over her chest in a protective gesture, only emphasizing how unexpectedly body-shy she apparently was.

Later he would wonder if it was just that he couldn't think straight when confronted by the sight of his half-naked girlfriend, or if Fate had stepped in and given him the right words. Either way, his words were far more reckless than he normally would have allowed himself to be, for fear of scaring her even more than she obviously was. "You're the sexiest thing I've ever seen," he breathed, meaning every word of it.

Bakura's breath hitched and her arms fell, lax, into her lap. Nervous anxiety and a visceral hunger fought for dominance as her foremost facial expression. Her eyes glistened with withheld emotion and unshed tears as she tried to formulate a response to that. "I…you…I…" She let out a growl of frustration and said, "Ditto," before crushing their lips back together again.

Her kisses after that had been fervently desperate, almost as if she was trying to distract him from asking her to elucidate further on her one-word response. Ever since they'd admitted their feelings for each other, she'd never shut their mind-link down, no matter what. Despite how much she obviously didn't want to talk or even **think** about this, now was no exception. He could tell that he had completely unnerved her by his simple statement, and she, never one for deep thinking – at least when it involved her own emotions – wanted to bypass talking about this and go back to the action.

He didn't have a problem with that at all.

His cheeks warmed as he remembered what had transpired after that. That tanktop he'd been so transfixed by had soon gone by the wayside, along with Bakura's jeans and his own shirt and pants. He'd been so caught up in the moment – in her thoughts, and feelings that bombarded him through the mind-link so fast he almost couldn't catch anything but a feeling of complete and utter devotion wrapped around an almost animal attraction – in the feel of her against him – soft silken skin over solid muscles moving against his own body – that he hadn't had time to be anxious about the fact they'd never gone that far before, and he had no clue what he was doing.

Later, he'd be grateful for his unconscious restraint in the heat of the moment. He definitely didn't regret making love with Bakura, and he wouldn't have regretted going all the way then; he was certain she wouldn't have, either… But it was good that they'd not gotten past third base – if only because it was something they needed to talk about before they did it.

Lying there in the aftermath, the warm glow of the fire at his back and the even hotter feel of her slumbering form nestled snug against him like a cozy kitten, with the sound of the rain pattering on the newly-repaired roof casting a dreamlike haze over everything, he'd never felt more content.

Bakura had pretty much avoided even thinking about what had propelled them forward in their intimate relationship. Every time he'd felt her thoughts settle on that night, she'd veer purposely away from them. She was willing to talk about the sex – and they had, one afternoon, at his insistence, since they really needed to figure out how far and how fast they wanted to go before they did something neither of them was ready for – but the words they'd exchanged…

Well, that was a whole 'nother tomb full of treasure.

Shaking off his rather ecchi thoughts – despite common conception of him as a shy, soft-spoken guy, his hormones were just as rampant as any other teenage male's – Ryou turned back to the parchment.

_I know you wonder what I see in you._

Ryou's breath caught in his throat. He'd been **sure** he'd managed to hide that fear from his koi…

After all, in any relationship, there really only needs to be **one** person who was undergoing a psychological doubt-filled crisis at a time. And despite his highly **ab**normal life, Ryou was **way** more well-adjusted than Bakura…though not by much.

_Well, little treasure, wonder no longer._

This definitely piqued his interest.

_I think you're beautiful. Not just outside, though you are the walking definition of bishounen–_

Ryou blushed at that.

–_but inside as well. I've never been one for words, you know that, but I heard this song on the radio the other day that I think mirrors my feelings perfectly:_

_I…I think you're beautiful.  
__My world would be an empty place,  
__without your touch, without your face._

_And I see the man you are…  
__And everything you want to be,  
__and how you love the things,  
__that mean the most to me.  
__I think you're beautiful._

_Sometimes you don't understand me, but you try, and…_  
_And I'm not sure why I deserve this life.  
But I'm so thankful that it's mine,  
and you are too._

He read Bakura's words, drinking them in as if he was dying of thirst, and they were sweet, pure water.

_And I am, Ryou…my most precious treasure. You are, without a doubt, the best thing that's ever happened to me._

_I'm not sure how to tell you so that you never doubt my words, but I'll give it a try._

_I'm not sure my heart didn't shrivel up long ago – oh, wait, it did, along with the rest of my **original** corporeal body…_

Ryou grimaced slightly at the morbid imagery, thrown slightly out of the romantic mood set by the song lyrics, before his lips turned up in an involuntary smile despite himself. It was vintage Bakura; she tried for romantic, but her true self couldn't help shining through. Which made this letter mean all the more, since he was of the opinion that romance was mostly roles played out by society's standards; all he wanted was the true Bakura.

_And since **you** are literally the other half of my soul…well, saying that I love you with all my heart and soul doesn't really mean all that much. If I don't have a heart, then the first half is meaningless, and since **technically** you are part of my soul, that means I'm professing to love myself. Which I'm not sure I do, but anyway…_

A forlorn expression crossed Ryou's face at that. He'd never known how deep Bakura's self-esteem had been wounded by her hard life.

_I'm not even sure if I deserve this second chance at life I've been given, but I can tell you this: I may not be able to love you with my heart or soul…but I will love you with my life._

_Always,  
__Bakura_

"And I will love you with mine, my love," Ryou murmured, his thoughts mirroring his words through their mind-link. The door gliding open drew his attention away from the parchment. Bakura was standing hesitantly in the doorway, dressed in only a knee-length T-shirt, bare feet tapping nervously against the floor. Her skin had been deeply tanned by the summer sun, and it shone with a bronze glow against the soft blue of her lone garment.

"I meant every word of it," she said in a hushed, almost inaudible voice.

"I know," Ryou said, voice just as soft. "So do I, Bakura."

Accepting his implicit invitation to come closer, she padded cautiously across the floor, settling gingerly onto the bed beside him, legs tucked up underneath her, the discarded parchment lying between them. She stared at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap.

Ryou, respecting her need for a moment of distance, reached over and picked up the parchment, rolling it back up and tying it with the discarded ribbon before laying it carefully on his bedside table.

She gave a soft sigh and then cuddled up to his side, murmuring in contentment when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his lap.

They sat there for a moment, eyes half-closed, sharing the same breath, thoughts blending together in their mind-link in a riotous combination of soul-deep devotion and love-laced arousal.

"Can I stay the night?" she ventured, thoughts threaded with hesitation and fear of rejection.

To say Ryou was surprised by Bakura's request was an understatement. Always before, no matter how far they'd gone – afternoon delights in front of the fireplace included – at the end of the day they'd always retreated to their separate beds. It was something Ryou missed, actually; in the days after they'd gotten together, but before Bakura had her own body, when Ryou had gone to sleep, they'd both slept in the same soul room, holding each other. They were some of his most precious memories; he'd never felt so safe – and loved – as when they were in each other's arms. He hadn't felt anything like that since…until that night three weeks prior.

He knew why Bakura hadn't continued their arrangement. Sleeping in the same soul room was easy when you were sharing the same body – as long as he'd worn the Millennium Ring, anyway – but otherwise it took a bit of magic to connect the now-two Sennen Items, and it was an awkward subject to broach.

And it had been one thing to share the same soul room – the fact that their bodies weren't physical, combined with how new their relationship was, kept things from going farther than an occasional chaste goodnight kiss before they cuddled together to sleep. But sleeping in the same **real** bed had that neither of them had been ready for until a few weeks ago. Not even then, maybe…

No matter how innocent they might intend the arrangement to be, it meant **more** somehow to be physically sharing each other's sleeping space. Bakura surely knew he wouldn't expect anything from her…but it was something she had to work out for herself. Her comfort zone had to come to encompassing this in her own time, without any intervention on his part.

More than anything, he wanted her to stay with him…always. He just hoped she was offering this because **she** wanted it, not just because she knew he did.

Gently cupping her cheek, he turned her to face him, wild red eyes staring fearfully into his own brown ones. "Always, love," he whispered against her lips. "You can stay with me forever."

The kiss that followed his words contained none of the hesitancy of their first kiss, most of the desire of those exchanged that rainy afternoon…and all of the love of the ones before and since.

Ryou was on the verge of tears when he pulled back, overcome by the emotions zinging back and forth along their mind-link. A feedback loop had sprung up between them; their emotions feeding on each other, amplifying with each circuit. His breath caught in his throat at the look on Bakura's face: part wanton desire, part hesitant, heart-wrenching yearning…and all perfect, undying love.

"Aishiteru, Ryou," she whispered against his lips, voice quavering.

Ryou's breath hitched in his throat as he returned the heart-felt sentiment. "Aishiteru mo, Bakura," he murmured.

If possible, their emotions swelled and grew, expanding out of their bodies, or even their minds, to encompass the whole of the world.

Bakura felt the last of her emotional barriers – one she didn't even know she'd had – crumble into dust at the barrage of feelings. She had never imagined such love could exist – let alone be focused on her. She was surrounded by Ryou's feelings for her, and they felt so wondrously amazing… It was almost too much to be true. But as she looked into Ryou's eyes, so full of love for her…she knew it was real, and true…and would last forever.

* * *

To Be Continued In _Desert Beauty_


End file.
